A class action lawsuit originally filed against Apple in 2013 over broken iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, and later iPhone 5 power buttons is finally set to proceed to jury trial in San Diego state court beginning October 25, 2019.

The lawsuit alleges that Apple knowingly sold the aforementioned iPhone models with "defective" power buttons and refused to properly remedy the issue. For this, Apple is accused of "deceptive" or "fraudulent" business practices, breach of warranty, and violating multiple California consumer laws.

The proposed class includes California residents who purchased an iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, or iPhone 5 from Apple or a third-party retailer:

iPhone 4 and 4S Class:

All California citizens who purchased one or more iPhone 4 or 4S smartphones from Apple or a third-party retailer, from June 24, 2010 through October 10, 2011 for the iPhone 4, and from October 11, 2011 through September 20, 2012 for the iPhone 4S, and whose sleep/wake (power) button stopped working or worked intermittently during a one year period from date of purchase.

iPhone 5 Class:

All California citizens who purchased one or more iPhone 5 smartphones from Apple or a third-party retailer prior to April 1, 2013, and whose sleep/wake (power) button stopped working or worked intermittently during a three year period from date of purchase.

In April 2014, Apple initiated a program offering free repairs of a "small percentage" of iPhone 5 models with power buttons that may "stop working or work intermittently," but the lawsuit alleges that the program went "unnoticed" and began "ten months after the initial complaint in this matter."

The class action lawsuit seeks damages in an amount to be proven at trial, plus restitution, injunctive, and declaratory relief. Apple denies all of the allegations in the complaint, and denies that it did anything improper or unlawful.

As with any class action lawsuit, proposed members can do nothing to remain part of the class, or opt out to retain the right to sue Apple individually.

hmmmm. Ive never heard of anyone ever having a problem and Ive been fixing iPhones since the 3G.

I did have this problem, and the phone fell under the recall but then they wouldn't fix it for some other reason which I forget now, it's been a while. (Maybe a glass crack so they couldn't open without replacing the glass, too?)

My mother-in-law inherited the phone and had to use the accessibility virtual buttons to get around it.

So is the argument here that apple shouldn’t have sold the iPhone 4 and 5? Arguably two of the most successful products in history? Or that from the moment that it was discovered that some iPhone power buttons would fail that they should stop selling the device?

There seems to be this misunderstanding that a “known issue” is an inherently bad things. Everything ever has issues, it’s a fundamental law of physics that things will slowly break and become nonfunctional through entropy or energy loss.

If you have done you job designing and engineering a product, you will be aware of its possible failures. Nearly all of the failures will be in ways you were well aware of when you release the device.

The world wanted a phone, apple made what they could at the time, it was a wonderful device for a lot of people.

Apple went to work at addressing the flaws of that design. Now there are fewer buttons and the button designs have been refined.

If the sleep/wake button was enough of an issue to fundamentally impact the functionality of the device, people wouldn’t have such fond memories of the device and form factor.

I get if you feel Apple could have handled customer support for the issue better, but how is that a lawsuit? If you don’t like how Apple supports its products, buy products from someone else.

There’s is this logical jump from “I wish this issue was taken care of differently” to “this device was designed defective and sale of the device was criminal” that makes absolutely no sense.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.